Informed Views From Outside the Beltway

CLIMBING THE HILL

A whole slew of brand new members of Congress are swarming into Washington, eager to begin what  many hope will be a long career in the United States Congress. I have a few words for them. 

In my days on the Hill every two years I watched many newly elected Republicans arrive in the Capitol city shortly after being elected. While some had previously worked in Washington most were newcomers utterly unfamiliar with the way things worked on Capitol Hill. 

In the interim between their election  and the opening of the new session of the Congress most of these Congressional newcomers would arrive in a city whose ways were utterly unfamiliar to them.  

They would be mostly concerned with finding the right offices in one of the three House Office buildings and the competition for the more convenient office suites was somewhat fierce.  They’d be looking guidance on how to go about staking a claim for one of the more desirable offices. 

Since I was usually one of the very few Republican staffers around in that interim period because I lived in the area and worked for the  party’s House policy committee, many of these incoming GOP freshmen would end up coming to me for guidance and sometimes help in finding their new office suites - a service I was not, in fact, equipped to offer. 

Some were wide-eyed newcomers while a few others knew their  way around the Hill. I recall a few of them but the memory of one newly elected member really stands out. He arrived at my office in the New House Office Building arm and arm with his wife who looked at him with unconcealed admiration – she looked at him the way Nancy looked at Ron. 

I was deeply impressed with their obvious love for each other. I took them over to the Capitol Hill Club for lunch. During lunch the wife asked me about shopping and I described the area downtown where most of the major Department stores were located. When we finished lunch she left to visit the stores I had recommended, after giving her husband a long hug and kiss. It was almost as if they could not bear parting with each other. 

She was barely out of sight when her new Congressman-to-be husband turned to me and asked “How does one get laid around here?” 

I told him pimping services were not among those offered by the House Republican Policy Committee. He later   went on to become a member of his state’s   supreme court. I wonder what he asked the court staff before going on the bench. 

The Hill, in those days at least, wasn’t exactly Sodom and Gomorrah but as one observer once noted, Washington was a city filled with important men who married their wives when they were very young. Their wives grew up. Many of them never did.  

It was also a place full of young, unattached women on the Hill many of whom were  invariably drawn to the men they worked for. This resulted in a lot of matches not made in Heaven.  

I don’t know if this remains true nowadays and I hope it doesn’t.

Those temptations of the flesh aren’t the only ones a newcomer faces. There are lot others where one not only succumbs to the allure of sexual encounters but also to the siren song sung by various pressure groups  seeking to add the scalps of new members of Congress to their belts. The wiser among the newcomers manage to steer clear of these scalp hunters, but some chose to avail themselves of the services and goodies offered by lobbyists and end up willfully doing their bidding. 

The smart newcomer takes the goodies, says thank you, and steers clear of any kind of attachment to the causes the lobbyists represent. It can be hard to so do when the lobbyists have become their close friends and seldom ask for anything that appears to be unreasonable.  And they make great golfing companions since they belong to the best golf and country clubs. 

My advice to the married newcomers – stay out of possibly compromising situations when attending social affairs where there are unattached women on the make, and  keep the lobbyists at arms length. You’ll find they can be helpful – they know more about all the ins and outs concerning most legislative matters, what’s good and what’s bad, and they usually are better informed on these matters than anybody else. But they have an agenda and they are the salesmen for it.  

Happy New Year.

Phil Brennan is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. A WWII U.S. Marine he served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com